Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The new political divide pits conservatives against liberals and populists
The new political divide pits conservatives against liberals and populists
Dec 13, 2025 3:39 AM

The election of 2016 highlighted how politically divided we are as a nation. But the dividing line may not be where we had assumed.

For the past few decades the electorate has been viewed as divided almost equally between social and economic conservatives and social and economic liberals. But a recent study of voting patterns in the 2016 election reveals the old left-right divide is fractured and voters are clustered into four main groups.

The first group prised of Liberals, who are liberal on both economic and identity issues. At 44.6 percent, prise the largest voting demographic.

The second group is made up of Populists, people who are liberal on economic issues and conservative on identity issues. They are 28.9 percent of the population.

The third group is Conservatives, those who are conservative on both economic and identity issues. They are not only much smaller than the Liberals but even smaller than the Populists, making up only 22.7 percent of voters.

Finally, there are the Libertarians, who are conservative on economic issues and liberal on identity issues. prise a mere 3.8 percent of voters.

This scatterplot below shows how these groups aligned in the 2016 electorate.

Not surprisingly, Clinton voters are consistently liberal on both economic and identity issues. But notice that Trump voters are less conservative on identity issues than Clinton voters are liberal. And while Trump voters are clustered around the center-right on economic issues, few are strongly conservative on economics—and many are economically liberal.

Clinton won the majority of Liberals, while Trump won almost all of the Conservatives. But Trump also won 6.3 percent of the Liberal vote and gained the edge in winning over the Populists. Trump beat Clinton by about a 3-to-1 margin among the populists. Clinton won only 5.7 percent of the Populist vote, barely beating out the 4.3 percent of populists who supported third party candidates.

(Libertarians split almost equally between Clinton, Trump, and third party candidates like Johnson, proving that Liberaltarians do exist.)

So how did Trump win? As the report notes, largely by winning over the Populists—liberal on economic issues, conservative on identity issues—who had previously voted for Obama (about 8 percent of Populists had voted for Obama in 2012) or who had supported neither Obama nor Romney in 2012.

He also resonated with those who supported economically liberal positions—which now is the majority of the Republican party. If we look at primary voters, we find that Republicans—even Ted Cruz voters—were to the left of Clinton voters on attitudes about foreign trade. Trump voters were also to the left of every candidate but Kasich on economic inequality.

What does this portend for the GOP? As the report notes,

Republicans are about equally divided between economically liberal populists and more free-market-oriented conservatives. Republican primaries revealed a Kasich faction that is consistently more moderate across issues, a Trump faction that is more liberal on economic issues but more conservative on identity issues, and a Cruz faction that is more free market on economic issues and particularly conservative on moral issues.

[…]

Since Republicans have picked up more economically liberal voters (and may continue to do so since there are still some populists who vote for Democrats), it may be harder for Republicans to continue to push a traditional conservative free-market agenda.

As these results show, free market advocates pletely e in the Democratic Party and increasingly ing a minority within the GOP. If we don’t find a way to shift the tide soon we advocates of economic freedom may find ourselves caught between Populist and Liberals as they fight about what sort of socialism we’ll be forced to accept.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Does The Godfather believe in America?
Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic masterpiece shines a light on how attempts to subvert American institutions in the name of a higher, personal justice can fail calamitously. In the end, human nature will not be subverted. Read More… This month the Tribeca Film Festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Godfather, an important movie, a movie we at some point got in the habit of calling iconic, and we might remember it made stars of...
Income inequality is not a problem for government to fix
Taxing the rich to make others richer is a recipe for e stagnation, petition. Read More… Implicit in concerns about rising e inequality is a critique of the underlying system that generated that inequality: a free market regulated petition. In a free market, people are rewarded with earnings that correspond to the value they create for others. For this to happen, however, everyone ideally has an equal opportunity to earn an ever expanding e. The perceived problem is that such...
The ground is shifting under Francis Fukuyama’s feet
In his new book, the author of The End of History attempts to explain how liberalism is threatened by illiberal elements on the left and right. But flaws in his analysis almost guarantee that this is not the end of the discussion. Read More… In Liberalism and Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama aims to defend liberal political ideas and institutions against rising and now entrenched detractors from the postliberal left and the right. As he notes, “liberalism is under severe threat...
Supernatural thriller Stranger Things shows the all-too-human evil of communism
Season 4 of the Netflix mega-hit still focuses on the reality of supernatural evil, but has added a dose of natural evil as well. But where’s the supernatural good? Read More… The final installment of the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things was released on July 1. According to Variety, season 4’s first installment “of the Duffer Brothers’ hit sci-fi series was viewed for 287 million hours during the week of May 23–29, landing in the No. 1 position.” The...
Tony Sirico, 1942-2022
Requiescat in pace. Read More… Tony Sirico, the renowned actor and older brother of Acton Institute co-founder and president emeritus, Rev. Robert A. Sirico, passed away on July 8, 2022. He was 79 years old. Watch the livestream of the funeral of Tony Sirico on Wednesday, July 13, at 10:30am ET here: Sirico was best known for his role as “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieriin HBO’sThe Sopranos, for which he won twoScreen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in...
Twenty-five years after promising autonomy, China has turned Hong Kong into China
Xi Jinping’s recent victory lap in Hong Kong does not bode well for the future of civil rights and freedoms there, as the “one country, two systems” agreement made with Great Britain in 1997 appears irreparably broken. Read More… On January 1, 1997, Hong Kong, effectively seized by Great Britain in war a century before, reverted to Chinese rule. Only recently liberated from the madness of Mao Zedong’s rule, Beijing promised to preserve Hong Kong’s separate “system” for 50 years....
How Frederick Douglass found hope on the Fourth of July
On July 5, 1852, nearly a decade before the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and statesman-abolitionist, offered a profound speech on seeing the Fourth of July through the eyes of a slave. The speech monly known as “What to a slave is the 4th of July?” — illuminates the drastic disconnect between ourfounding principles and the severe oppression of slavery that somehow managed to endure. While the specific evils in question have thankfully been abolished,...
John Wesley teaches us the true value of money
Many believe that money is the root of all evil, when in fact the Bible says “love of money” is the root of all evil. But a healthy e, even wealth, can also be a blessing that enables us to bless others. Read More… John Wesley, the father of Methodism, defended a rigorous and intentional plan for Christlikeness that would touch every aspect of a believer’s life. Caring intensely for the poor, he endeavored to create short, easy-to-read “penny pamphlets”...
Yes, abortion is about race, but not in the way progressives think
Roe v. Wade has been overturned and bad arguments in defense of unrestricted abortion abound. What everyone needs now is a little history lesson. Read More… As I was watching a film with my son the other day, we began to hear chanting below us. We looked out the window and saw protesters marching in the streets shouting, “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! The white man has got to go!” The protesters were themselves white. The protest was in response to...
An economist’s summer reading list
Between raging inflation and declining markets, consumers have much to worry about. What they shouldn’t worry about is whether there are answers at hand. Some new books provide hope. Read More… If you attended Acton University, you saw the treasure trove of books for sale. Several of those books made it onto both my credit card and my summer reading list. Even if you weren’t able to join us at AU, you can still find most of the books here....
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved